Title 18
by LileyKigoSpashleyRizzslesLover
Summary: Is true love worth compromising such a strong friendship? Jane thinks no. Maura thinks yes. Continuation of S2E12. Jane/Maura. Oneshot.


A/N: I certainly wasn't expecting the show to actually go partially the way I had planned in my head about halfway through the episode. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy!

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Jane stood at Maura's stove and flipped a grilled cheese sandwich onto a plate with a wooden spoon. She carried it to the kitchen counter, where Maura was waiting on the other side with a bottle of wine.

"I'm having grilled cheese." She said slowly, looking bewildered at the bottle.

"It goes with anything." Maura gushed. "It's a 1994 Chateau Du Garde."

The detective put down her plate. "Again? I'm so sick of that." She said sarcastically.

The other woman laughed at the joke. "It's sheer perfection, I've only had it once." She said as she began to open the bottle.

"Listen," Jane started while Maura worked on the drink. "I don't want to stand in the way of a great romance, okay?"

She stopped what she was doing and looked up. "What do you mean?"

"You and Tommy. I mean, clearly, opposites attract."

Maura smiled up at her and spoke as she took out the cork. "It's an evolutionary strategy to ensure healthy reproduction."

"Okay, why do you gotta go straight to breeding? Alright? With my brother!"

She laughed and pulled out the cork. "Look, I like Tommy. A lot. But I _love _you. And I hate it when you hate me. So I don't want to do anything to compromise our friendship."

"Good. Cause I hate it when I have to hate you."

Another chuckle came from the doctor as she poured the wine. "Sip it slowly." She said before they clinked glasses.

Jane, being her usual self by not listening to Maura, chugged down more than she should have. She immediately made a disgusted face and spit it back in the glass. "Oh! How much was this?"

"Six hundred and twenty five dollars – did you just spit out a '94 Chateau?"

She made some rather interesting noises as she mocked the other woman's scolding. "Yes! My god some smart shopper Tommy is – " She picked up the bottle and inspected it. "Why - he wasted a month's rent on a bottle of rancid vinegar and old garlic…" Her face still held an expression that suggested she had just licked a shoe.

"No, no. It just needs to breathe and release its tannins." Maura assured her.

"Really?" She wasn't convinced so she leaned in closely to observe the other woman's reaction as she was about to take a sip. She saw her expression take on a slightly less dramatic version of her own.

"Mmm… you might be right."

"Yeah… mm-hmm." She lifted her glass up.

"Oh! What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna to pour it back in the bottle so Tommy can take it back." She answered, doing just that.

"We're not gonna take it back!" She protested.

"Oh, I'll take it back."

Maura let out a burst of laughter as Jane continued pouring.

"It's all over my grilled cheese." She complained after she poured the last of her drink back into the bottle. Now she would have to throw that out because there was _no way _she was tasting that wine again.

"Here I'll make you another one." Maura said, coming around the other side of the counter.

"You don't have to do that."

"But I insist." She reached over for the plate but Jane grabbed it away from her.

"I can do it myself." She said, giving the other woman an odd look.

She frowned but conceded. "Alright." She said, not backing away from the close proximity they were in now.

Jane didn't either, as it seemed all thought processes had stopped the minute the doctor stepped into her bubble. What was that about? She would wonder if she were capable of thinking right now.

Maura moved first. "I'll, uh… start getting ready for bed." She left the room and headed for her bedroom even though it was still rather early.

The woman taking out two more slices of bread, however, didn't pay attention to the odd behavior as she was still trying to investigate her own.

In the bathroom, the M.E. splashed some water on her face and stared at herself in the mirror. Silly as she thought it was, she began to talk to herself. "Okay, I know I've been through this before. Do _not _compromise your friendship with Jane!" She sighed and held her face in her hands. "This is going to be even harder now. I don't know why but… I shouldn't have told her I loved her. Even if she didn't understand it the way I meant it…" She took another second to compose herself and went back out in hopes the other woman was almost ready to sleep.

"Sorry I wasted more bread and cheese… and butter." She apologized when she saw the other woman walk into the room.

"Don't be." She waved it off and sat down, noticing that Jane had pulled out a bottle of beer. The kind she had bought only for her.

"You sure you didn't want one?" The detective asked, offering her half.

"No, I'm fine." She smiled.

Jane just shrugged and kept on eating.

"I love that, though…" Maura commented out of nowhere a few minutes later.

"What?"

"You." She answered with a slightly dreamy look on her face. A split second later it faded and she back-tracked. "I – I mean you… making grilled cheese. How you just make yourself at home. I've never had a friend like that, you know?"

Jane just took another bite out of her cheesy sandwich and laughed. "You've never had a friend." She reminded.

The M.E. gasped in offense. "I've had friends!"

"Oh, right, I'm sorry. The phrase was 'best friend'." She said, recalling the conversation they had during her first visit to this residence.

"Thank you. Though now I'm proud to say that I can't say that anymore." Just like how she can no longer say she's never felt like she's met her soul mate.

Jane smiled. "Yeah, me too."

Maura faced her with a quizzical look. "What do you mean? I thought you've had best friends before."

"Well… I did. Just never anyone like you." She gave her another smile, though this time it was slightly shy.

"Aww. Thanks, Jane." She resisted the urge to give her a hug, as she was sure she would not be able to restrain herself, and looked ahead.

"You feeling okay, Maura?" She asked, able to detect the sudden change in the air.

Maura stayed quiet as she tried to figure out what to say.

"You're not getting another one of those 'stomach aches' are you?" She asked with a tone that hinted at the fact that she was worried about that being true.

"No, no. Of course not. I'm just…" Normal people would put it off as saying they were tired. However, even though it was night time she couldn't say that was the case. "I just feel… " She couldn't come up with something else and panicked.

"If you wanted your own beer I could have gotten one for you." Jane said, taken aback by the suddenness in which the other woman grabbed for her drink.

"Sorry…"

The detective put down her sandwich and turned in her chair to face her. "Maura… what's going on with you? I know when something's up and… something's definitely up."

She sighed and tried to get her brain to come up with something to get her out of this corner but she wasn't having much luck. She decided the whole truth might be the best route. "It's just - I've seen how upset you can get with me when I keep something from you… I _never _want to feel that way again, Jane. It was horrible." Her eyes started to water.

"I know... and I'm sorry. I didn't want to either but... you really hurt me."

She nodded, understanding that now. "My whole life has been my job, Jane. The risk of losing that – no matter how much I trust you… I just couldn't."

Jane's eyes softened and she wrapped her arms around the sobbing scientist. "Shh… it's okay. It's all over now, alright? I don't hate you, you don't hate me. It's all good."

Maura didn't feel like everything was okay, though. She still thought there was reason for Jane to hate her. After all, she was keeping something rather big from her. Something that would change their friendship forever if it got out. But she knew that something as powerful as she believed their love to be was worth the risk. She just wasn't sure about how to bring it up.

"Well I don't know about you but I am beat! Almost being shot at kinda does that to you." She laughed before she stood and put her plate in the sink. She gave the other woman a wave as she walked towards the hallway her room was down.

"Okay, goodnight." She called, figuring one more night to think about the situation wouldn't hurt. She went into her own bedroom and collapsed on the bed. This was harder to solve than Fermat's last theorem, she thought cryptically.

In another room Jane lied awake in her bed. Sure it was _technically _Maura's but she had been there enough times over the relatively short time she had known the M.E. that it just felt like hers. In any normal situation she would be happy about that. Who wouldn't be, after all, having a place you know you can go to anytime no matter what. But for some reason she didn't want to be in_ this _bed. She wanted, more than anything at the moment, to go slip into Maura's bed.

Her mind kept going back to earlier – when the quirky woman said 'I love you'. She knew she didn't mean it in the romantic sense but she couldn't help but get a warm, fuzzy feeling at the memory.

After hours of tossing and turning she decided to get up. Tip-toeing to the other side of the house, she peeked into Maura's room to find her fast asleep. Jane argued with herself for a moment before turning around, figuring that just randomly getting into her bed in the middle of the night might be a little weird, even for Maura's standards of 'normal'. She decided to go outside instead, where she hoped the cold Boston air would put some sense into her.

One step outside and her teeth immediately began to chatter. She shook her head at herself at forgetting a jacket but didn't go back inside. She walked down Maura's street, filled with extremely expensive homes, and tried not to think about anything in particular – she found this was the best method of dealing with this.

By the time she rounded the corner she was absolutely freezing and seriously contemplating running into a stranger's house just for the warmth. Since she didn't really feel like getting tazed, she figured her next best option was to go back to the place she was running away from.

She wasn't really sure what she thought she was going to accomplish by going outside at 2am but now she was more convinced than before. She had to keep this new revelation to herself. If Maura wasn't going to date Tommy in order to keep from compromising their friendship she might as well return the favor. Nothing good could possibly come out of it anyway, she thought dejectedly.

A few minutes later, a Janesicle entered the Isles residence. Body shivering and teeth chattering, she tried to make it to her room quietly. She was unsuccessful, though, as her erratic tremble caused her to knock something over.

Before Jane even had time to pick it up, Maura came out of her room wielding one half of a pair of pink stiletto heels.

"Maura? Heels? Really? What are you going to do with that?"

"It was the first thing I grabbed…" She said sheepishly as she put it down. "I thought you were somebody breaking in."

"And you didn't come run and get me? The person with a gun?"

She shrugged. "Maybe I wanted to be the one to protect you this time…"

The detective couldn't help but smile at that. "Well thank you anyway." She tried to get past the tired looking doctor but wasn't having much luck.

"What were you doing out anyway?" She prodded.

"What makes you think I went out? What if I just wanted some… rancid wine?"

Maura gave her a pointed look but answered her anyway. "Well if your shivering is any indication then I would say you were in relatively cold weather. Either that or I need to rush you to the hospital for a sudden fever or Rickettsial infection or a bacterial infection or – " She said, listing off each thing on her fingers as she said them.

"Okay, okay, Dr. Web MD, I don't need your 'symptom checker' powers right now. I'm not sick. I went out…"

She smiled and nodded, knowing she was right. "And this brings me back to my first question. Why were you out?"

Jane shrugged. "Dunno. Needed to get out, I guess."

"At two o'clock in the morning?"

"I couldn't sleep."

She just sighed. "Jane, the next time that happens you could try something else that won't risk hypothermia. I have some calming tea in the cabinet, for example. Or you could practice some meditation. Or – "

She put her hand up to stop her. "I'm fine now, thank you." She tried to walk past her again and succeeded. Just as she put a hand on her door knob, Maura's voice stopped her.

"Jane…"

She turned around.

"I, uh… I think I need to talk to you…"

"At two o'clock in the morning?" She mirrored Maura's tone of disbelief from before.

She nodded.

Jane sighed but went over to the couch, where Maura joined her.

The M.E. let out a heaving sigh before starting out her practiced speech. "I need to tell you something. Something I've been keeping from you for awhile."

Jane's face fell but she looked at her expectantly. "What is it? Something bad?"

She shook her head. "I don't' think so. Though, there's no way to tell if you will until I tell you…"

A slight silence until Jane urged her on again. "Go on…"

"I… I've admired you since I met you, Jane. Over time, that admiration turned into something else. Something stronger that I haven't been able to shake no matter how hard I try."

"You know I don't like these word puzzles you always give me…"

She tried going a different route. "After this experience I've decided not to keep anything else from you from here on out. So…" She said, but hesitated.

"It can't be that bad, Maura. Not as bad as before. Come on, you can tell me anything." She put a hand on the other woman's hand and tried to reassure and goad at the same time.

"I'm in love with you, Jane."

"You wha-?" A reaction of astonishment was putting it lightly.

Maura took the fact that Jane's hand was still on her own as a good sign. "I'm in love with you. I have been for awhile."

Jane stood up quickly, causing the seated woman to frown.

The M.E. shrunk in the couch. "You hate me again, don't you?"

She looked over at her. "No, of course not." She sat back down. "I was just… surprised." She let out a nervous laugh. "It's not every day your best friend tells you she's in love with you."

Maura let out a nervous laugh as well, though it was tinged with regret. "Yeah…"

Noticing this, Jane took the other woman's hands in her own. "I'm sorry… I just… I don't want anything to ruin our friendship. I mean, this might not work out. And then what do we have? We'll end up like Frost and Agent Farrell."

"That's unlikely. Neither of us would keep the toilet seat up and we're both pretty much married to our jobs."

"You know what I mean." Jane said.

"But, Jane, you're not denying you have feelings for me. That can only lead me to the conclusion that you do, in fact, have feelings for me."

She stayed quiet, unsure of what to say.

Maura, more passionate than either of them have seen her be, looked at taller woman. Her gaze went past her eyes and into her soul. "I've never felt this strongly about anyone in my life. No, I've never felt this strongly about _anything. _That includes my job. I know I didn't show it much when I signed that Title Eighteen and kept things from you but I wasn't – " She shook her head, not sure how to end that. "I love you more than anything, Jane. If it's not too bold to say, I believe we're soul mates." She was grasping at straws here, trying to say anything she could, within the realm of truth, to make Jane believe this could work out.

Any doubt or hesitation that plagued the detective's mind about the issue was completely blown away by Maura's dedication to this. Instead of answering her with words, she used actions. Leaning down, she caught the M.E. by surprise and captured the half-open mouth in a kiss. This enabled easy access and allowed for their first kiss to be delightfully intoxicating.

When they pulled back, Maura's eyelids were half-closed in utter bliss. It took her a second to realize that they weren't kissing anymore. "That was… wow."

That put an egotistical grin on Jane's face. "I know."

She couldn't even think of a comeback for the woman that was obviously asking for it. Instead, she wanted to go in for another kiss.

This one was much more languid than the previous one. They took their time and, as the seconds ticked on so did their energy.

"I think it's time we get to bed." Maura said, lids half-closed for another reason now.

Jane nodded, happy to get to share the bed with her now. Though she was tired, she was ecstatic at the turn-around the night had made. However, there was still part of her that was worried about things going south.

The smaller woman got up first and headed to her bedroom. Just as she got to the door, she turned around, barely able to hold back a smile. "Jane, do you really think you're going to get into my bed this easily?"

"We're only going to be sleeping." She argued. "And besides, you let guys you barely know sleep with you. Like Giovanni and – "

Maura placed a finger on the moving lips. "I don't want to think about them." She whispered and wrapped her arms around Jane's neck. "I just want to think about you." She pressed her lips against the supple, waiting ones.

"So is that a 'yes, Jane, I'd love it if you share my bed with me'?" She asked with a cheeky grin.

Her response was just to pull her inside by the elbow with a sultry smirk and shut the door.


End file.
